The Making of Americans, Being a History of a Family's Progress

by Gertrude Stein

  This then the being in Mr. Hissen the grandfather of the three Hersland children is one way of having religion, feeling of virtue, in one, it is an important thing to have it completely inside me the feeling of religion in Mr. Hissen. It is pretty completely inside me now and still a little I am waiting, I will now soon be describing one who had another way of having religion, the complete other extreme and still of the same kind of them as Mr. Hissen and then I will be describing the in between kinds of them and so then I will come again to Alfred Hersland. And all of these then are of the resisting kind of them the dependent independent kind of them and now then again a little I am beginning to be waiting. I will be waiting quite a little now before I begin again.

  There are some who naturally are knowing dead is dead but these are not then certain that to be dead is to be a dead one. There are many who are saying to be dead is to be a dead one but these then are not very certain that to be dead is to be really a dead one. There are some who are practically speaking completely certain that to be dead is to be a really dead one but always these then are afraid in living and always these then are a little afraid of being a dead one, some then are very completely afraid of becoming a really dead one some of these then are thinking feeling when they are being completely afraid of being a completely dead one when they will be dead ones that perhaps then to be dead is not to be really a dead one, they knew it in them that to be dead is to be completely entirely a dead one, these are certain then of this thing and they are afraid then every moment in their living that it will come to be in them that they will come to be a really dead one and then many of these then have it in them as a fear in them that to be a dead one is to be really a dead one and they know that is really in them that to be dead is to be really a dead one and so then they have it in them that they think they have it in them that they are believing then that to be a dead one is not to be really a dead one and then they do not know it in them whether that is really a comforting thing to them, they do not know it in them whether they are ever really thinking that to be a dead one is not to be really dead then and these are not certain whether it is a comfort to them any such a feeling and there they are then these then full up then with fear inside them every kind of fear they can possibly have then for they have it in them that to be dead is to be a dead one and they have it in them to never to be wanting to be such a kind of a really dead one and then they have it in them from this fear in them coming out of this fear in them that they will soon come to be a really dead one, that perhaps a dead one is not really a dead one and then they have the fear in them of a dead one not being then a really dead one and fear then is complicated in them and there are a very considerable number of such of them always existing and fear then makes of them that they have a generalised conception that they have religion in them and virtuous being in them and this is of the feeling in them that comes from the reaction in them from the fear in them of being a really dead one that perhaps being a dead one is not really being a really dead one and always then these have in them as a continuous concrete realisation and this is always being in them that to be dead is to be completely really a dead one.

  Some have it as a complete feeling in them that to be dead is to be dead and this then a world without ending is in them for to be dead is to be a dead one and so then not any thing to them has ever any ending. Everything then to such of them is going on forever and forever to them and always then to be a dead one is to be a dead one and always then there is a continuing for ever and ever to such of them of everything and so then to these of them there is no ending of anything and living and being a dead one is to these then the very same thing and to be a dead one is to be a dead one and to be a living one a living one and to very many of these dead and living are all one and these then have in them religion as being of everything that is never ending and some of these then come to have it in them this I am describing to be certain that to be dead is to be a dead one and to be living is to be a living one and that always everything is never ending, come then to have it in them as loving being in them and these then can come to have it in them that they are of them that have it to be of the kind of them that own the thing they need for loving and so then these then having it as loving in them that nothing is ever ending and to be dead is to be a dead one and to be living is to be a living one and that nothing is ever ending and have this in them as loving being and own the thing they need for loving are very interesting in religion.

  All these then that I have been describing all these then all these kinds of them that I have been describing I am thinking as of the resisting kind in men and women, the dependent independent kind of them.

  These then some men and women always there are a good many of these living who have it in them to have resisting being and some way of feeling that to be a dead one is to be a dead one and have in them religion from this thing mixed up with this thing in them, these then that I have been describing are of the resisting kind in men and women, they are of that kind of them that have loving in them as resisting and owning those they need in loving not from stubborn feeling not for attacking but from the dependent independent right way of winning fighting. There are very many kinds of this kind in men and women, some of each kind of all these kinds of them have religion in them. Later after very much waiting and very much history of Alfred Hersland has been written there will be very much description of the way sensitiveness and religion is in the attacking kind in men and women and this will be written in the description of Julia Dehning who came to be marrying Alfred Hersland as I have already very long ago been telling. There will then be very much description of virtuous feeling and religion in the description of Julia Dehning, of virtuous feeling and religion in the attacking in the independent dependent kind in men and women. There will be very much description of virtuous feeling acting thinking being in the description of Mr. Henry Dehning and of old men having it in them virtuous feeling being thinking There will be a description of a kind of way of having virtuous feeling in the description of Mr. Dehning. There will be a description of George Dehning and the little one Hortense Dehning in the history of the younger Hersland brother David Hersland. Now I am still waiting to be beginning really beginning the history of Alfred Hersland from the beginning of his living.

  There have been then now, been in this description, the three generations of men and women. There was then Mr. and Mrs. Hissen and the old Mr. and Mrs. Hersland, there was then Mr. and Mrs. David Hersland and these then had three children Martha and Alfred and David and the history of Martha has been now already mostly written, not completely altogether written but a good deal written and now there will be beginning to be written the history of Alfred Hersland and every one he ever came to know in his early living, in his marrying and in his later living.

  There was then Mr. Hissen and Mrs. Hissen and Alfred Hersland had it in him to have a good deal in him Mr. Hissen being but it was a very different thing in him this being in him than it was in Mr. Hissen. Alfred never had in him at any time in him religion, he was a mixture then of old Mr. Hissen and old Mr. Hersland who was a butcher when he was a young man working and who was a man who had important feeling in him from having been a little important then in religion. Alfred Hersland then, to be certain of the being in him, was of the resisting kind of them in men and women and now then I will wait again and soon then I will be full up with him, I am now then not completely full up with him. Now I am again beginning waiting to be full up completely full up with him. I am very considerably full up now with the kind of being in him, I will be waiting and then I will be full up with all the being in him, that is certain, and so then now a little again once more then I am waiting waiting to be filled up full completely with him with all the being ever in him.

  There are then some living who are saying that to be a dead one is to be really a dead one and these then are not very certain that to be a dead one is to be really a dead one. They are then some who have it in them that dead is dead and
these then are not very certain that to be dead is to be a dead one. There are then very many who in living have it in them that dead is dead and these then are not certain that to be a dead one is to be a really entirely completely certainly altogether dead one. There are very many then of these always living, perhaps Alfred Hersland was one of this kind of them. Perhaps he is of this kind of men. Perhaps he is not this kind of a one, not one of this kind of them of women and men. Anyway this much is certain, he was of the resisting kind of them, he is of the resisting kind of men, of the dependent independent kind of them. He is certainly of the engulfing resisting kind in men and women.

  Of these Alfred Hersland was not really one, Julia Dehning was of this kind of them. They can be either attacking or resisting kind of them. There are some, indeed there are a very great many of them, I know some of them always in living, there are many of them some very successful in living some very brilliant in living, some not successful in living, some of every kind of them as to succeeding and failing, there are a very great number of them always living women and men who have it that the being the root of being in them is intensity of emotion and these then are doing, feeling believing many things in living, some many things very different from those other ones of that kind of them are feeling, thinking and believing, many of them very different things from what they have been and will be believing feeling thinking doing knowing and always each thing any of these are feeling thinking believing knowing doing is for them completely bathed and floated by the intensity of emotion that is all being in them and these have it that to themselves inside them they are deeply profoundly moved by the thing and really then they are really profoundly moved by the emotional intensity in them, not any thing in them, in those of them that are completely this kind of them not anything they ever are feeling thinking knowing believing doing in living has any other value than any other thing they are ever feeling knowing doing thinking believing for always all of the being in them is intensity in emotion and very many of such of them have sometime very strongly religion in them and mostly always virtuous feeling in them, that is natural for them to be having in them as any one understanding anything of human being certainly will be more or less realising. These then and there are a very considerable number always existing of them as I am saying are often succeeding very well in living and are brilliant ones in living and some of them are weak and stupid ones in living and there are all degrees in between but always it is certain that these have in them emotional intensity as being in them and often for a very long time they are puzzling, they are often for long years puzzling to some one for it is a very difficult thing to know it of them that not anything they are ever feeling knowing thinking believing understanding is profoundly in them when they are so completely moved and enveloped by and enveloping that thing, it is a very puzzling thing very often with these for they come so nearly to be original in living feeling thinking being knowing believing and they are really not then original ones and it is disconcerting for often one is a very long time convinced by them by such of them who are so completely themselves living by that thing in them then which is not them but is sustained by the intensity of emotion which is the really truly them. It is very certain that these then are very strong ones for following in religion for being certain of virtue in them, these must be that for otherwise they would know that they had not originality in them, this will be all so very interesting when I am going to be describing Julia Dehning, this is a completely interesting thing but now there must be a beginning to the real realisation in me of Alfred Hersland and his living, I have been doing a very great deal of waiting, waiting is to me very interesting for always something is coming or else nothing is coming and there is eating, sleeping, laughing, living, talking and a little tickling in the body and the mind then that is very pleasant to any one liking waiting and then there is always the drowsiness of going to be lively waking and all this is in me in waiting and I like very well doing waiting and now perhaps a little more I will be waiting but always I am a little near to beginning and now once more again I am waiting and now I am contenting myself again with waiting and that is a very pleasant feeling a pleasant thing for any one content inside them with it in them.

  I am always now feeling the temper stirring in Alfred Hersland the kind of temper he had in him when he was a boy and when he was a man and he had a temper in him that is a common thing with those having in them resisting being tending to the engulfing kind of that kind of them and Alfred Hersland had this kind of angry action in him although he was not an angry or a sullen person mostly in him.

  I am very nearly full up with him with Alfred Hersland and his kind in men and women. It is all filling in me now to over flowing. Alfred Hersland was a very little one and then a child and then a boy then. He learned to understand talking and answering and it was surprising when he began this thing as it is with every one. Once one sees a little one and he is not understanding anything any one says to him and he is not trying to do anything and then in a very little while a couple of months of living and he is understanding and answering and is trying to have things, that he can have a liking for then and that is a very certain thing and Alfred Hersland had this in him and later then he was a boy in his living and then he was coming to be a very young man and he had it then in him to be wanting to be helping his sister to have freedom so then he was very certain and he wanted to be helping and to be instructing and to be a good deal an example to his brother who was a younger one and he was then beginning resisting for every one to his father then, and his mother then had about him a strong feeling of worrying when he was a little late for dinner in the evening and later to be missing him when he had left them to go to Bridgepoint for his college education and he was then certain he was a man devoted to everything and every one and he always wrote to every one then to be good ones and he was a man then and then very much later he was marrying Julia Dehning and all this then was in him as much later living and in the beginning he was a little baby and then beginning understanding and talking and then a boy then and then a boy coming to be going to be a very young man and then he was full up with public feeling for every one living in the house with him, his sister, his brother, his father, his mother, every one, in the beginning then he was a very little one, this is now then the beginning of the complete history of the being and the living of him.